


Silver Belle

by FrenchRoast



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchRoast/pseuds/FrenchRoast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Rumbelle Christmas Steampunk AU</p><p>Rumplestiltskin surrounds himself with tinkering work, but is tired of doing everything himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Belle

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Rumbelle Secret Santa gift for darkandstormyranger! I hope you enjoy it--I know literally nothing about steampunk, but I tried my best--I might have gotten a little caught up in the clockwork side of it a little too much. The story itself is roughly based on Ovid's _Pygmalion_.

The leaves were starting to change, but Rumplestiltskin didn’t notice anything going on outside the Dark Castle these days. Not unless it had something to do with the ingredients he needed for the Dark Curse. Being the first one to create it meant chasing down so many annoying ingredients and parts, especially since he wanted to include some failsafes to make sure he could eventually escape to find his son.

“Of course I’m the first one. Always has to be me doing the hard parts. Anyone who can get their hands on the heart of the thing they love most will be able to cast this spell after the first time, but I have to be the one doing all the work now,” he complained to no one, for the Dark Castle was completely empty. Even the mice had made themselves scarce after he’d made that clockwork cat. “No one appreciates my handiwork unless they want me to do something for them.”

He didn’t blame anyone for this, not really. Rumplestiltskin was hard pressed to imagine his former self spending time with the Dark Tinker. No one made machines as fine or as well as Rumplestiltskin, but the cost was often high; his machines used magic or living flesh to work perfectly. Flesh was easier to come by, but those machines had been roundly declared monstrosities by all who encountered them. Even those who came begging for them; his doctor machines were renown for their healing powers and surgical skill, but saving lives cost lives. He would have preferred to use magic, but the curse of the Dark Tinker was his magic could only be used for evil. He’d never been able to get the tic-toc-docs to function with magic alone.

“I know what I’ll do,” he said as he looked up from his magnifying goggles. “I’ll build a maid. Then I won’t have to do everything by myself.” She wouldn’t have to be made at a cost, he reasoned, since in helping the Dark Tinker, it would be helping the evil that gave him his powers. No flesh would be needed.

He drew out a rough schematic of what the maid would look like, and made a list of parts. He had almost everything he needed already, gears and toggles and thin sheets of silver for the outer casing. Rumplestiltskin built most of the interior first, after deciding that she would walk rather than roll; functional legs would take more work, but would be worth it given all the stairs. Otherwise he’d need to install a lifting and lowering device in the stairwell, and that would ruin the aesthetic of it.

He spent the next weeks working carefully on his new maid. He used only parts that were in the finest condition. Twice he terrified shopkeepers in nearby towns as he went hunting for parts he needed, including one who was closing up shop early to go Christmas caroling.

“We’re closed,” the man said as he started to lock the door from the outside. Then he noticed Rumplestiltskin’s glittery gold face. “I mean, uh, we’re closing soon.”

“Closing?”

“You’re welcome to shop anytime, your…uh…your Darkness,” the man said, grasping for an honorific that sounded appropriate. “Need something for a Christmas project?”

“Christmas? It’s Christmas already?” Rumplestiltskin asked, and that was the first time he stopped to look at all the decorations surrounding him. The green boughs and red holly berries that highlighted the season were everywhere to be seen, now that he looked. “I hadn’t realized.”

“Only a day away.”

After that exchange, Rumplestiltskin had gone inside the store and found the gear plates he needed, as well as a length of copper wire. He paid and left.

“A day until Christmas,” he said to the empty castle. That explained the cold that had set in. There was no tree. There would be no tree. No presents. He tried not to think of Bae, all alone in a land without magic and a land that had no need of tinkers. Instead, he focused on his maid. She was nearly complete, and would be finished once he connected the few bits left and made some final touches. Then he could infuse her with Dark magic and she could do the mundane tasks while he focused on the important business of Dark Tinkering.

He set to work, welding pieces and tightening screws. He checked every part of the interior before enclosing the casing over everything. He inlaid two large sapphires for eyes, and two thin curved sticks of pink quartz for her lips. To the left side of her neck, you could see the on/off toggle switch. For hair, he simply sat a brown wig on her “head.” The rest of her was all silver, shiny as a bell.

“Belle. That’s what I’ll call you,” he declared. Looking at her, however, something seemed wrong.

Clothes. She needed clothes. Rumplestiltskin went rummaging through an old chest of clothes and found a simple blue corset dress and a white apron that looked like they would fit over the robot’s metal frame. After dressing Belle, he stepped back to admire his handiwork before adding the magic.

“You’re my best work,” he said to Belle. And she was. The only other work he’d put more careful or precise effort into at this point was the Dark Curse, and it still lacked several key components, some that he wouldn’t be able to acquire for years. But Belle was finished, and she seemed eerily human. He almost couldn’t make out the thin lines where he’d welded the exteriors together. Her face was sculpted from a silver mask, and both the sapphire eyes and rose quartz lips seemed nearly alive. A part of him wished that she was, but his creations were only facsimiles of life, not the real thing. This Belle would be a perfect maid, but nothing more. 

But first, Belle would need magic to work. Rumple walked up to her, and started to twist his wrist to ignite the magic dark spark that would start the engine inside, but stopped short. It was Christmas Eve, and he told himself he didn’t want to spend the evening talking to a clockwork robot. The real reason was he knew the Dark magic would forever alter her, and right now, she seemed perfect.

He was tempted to kiss her lips, but knew they would be cold and unfeeling. She was a machine. A machine he made.

“I wish you were real,” he said wistfully. He picked up the lamp and left the room. That night, as he lay in his bed searching for sleep he could never have, he repeated the wish he made every night, hoping that maybe this would be the night things would change. It was Christmas, after all.

“I know Christmas is for children, not for monsters like me,” he conceded, “and I know I lost Baelfire through my own foolishness. I don’t want him to be alone. I hate thinking of him, out there without his father, thinking I don’t love him, that I don’t want to be there for him. I know how horrible being alone is, but that’s my punishment. I don’t want it to be his. Please let my boy be loved until I can get to him. Please don’t let him be alone.” Rumplestiltskin didn’t know who he was even begging; Santa, maybe? Anyone who would listen, really. “Please don’t let me be alone,” he whispered. “They’ve all left me.”

The next morning, Rumplestiltskin was determined to forget the evening before. It was Christmas, but he would spend the day like any other, tinkering in his workshop.

But when he swung open the door to his workshop, he realized this day would not be like any other. For there, laying asleep on the floor, was a woman in a blue dress.

“Excuse me, dearie, but we’re closed,” he said. What was this world coming to, that peasants would barge into his castle after (before?) hours and just fall asleep? He really much make some clockwork soldiers or tic-toc guard dogs or something.

“Closed?” her voice was light and clear, like the ringing of a bell. That was when Rumplestiltskin put things together.

“Belle? Belle?!” he squeaked. It was definitely a squeak. “Are you…what happened?”

“I know you, Rumplestiltskin,” she said, standing up. Yes, that was the blue dress and apron he’d put on her, only now they fit properly. And now that he looked, her skin had silvery glint to it. This was definitely magic. But whose?

“Excuse me, dearie?”

“I know you. You made me. Well, part of me. You need my help. At least, that’s what the man in the red coat said. Really nice man. Very jolly.” Her eyes were shining blue, the exact shade of the sapphires he’d used. Her lips were rose pink, but they no longer looked cold or hard. 

“You were supposed to BE the help,” Rumplestiltskin retorted. “I need a maid.”

“You’re lonely, aren’t you?” Belle asked. “You don’t need a maid. You need someone to talk to.”

Rumplestiltskin didn’t know what to say, but it definitely threw him that a person who hadn’t even been alive 12 hours before seemed to have a better understanding of what he needed than he ever wanted to admit to himself. “I didn’t ask for this, dearie.” 

“Rumple, you’ve asked for this every night for over a century. You just didn’t know the answer would look like me.”

“How do you even know any of this?” he questioned.

“You made me. I know you. And we’ll find Baelfire together. I’ll help you.” Belle opened her arms and reached out towards him. “Merry Christmas.” He vacillated only a moment before throwing himself into her arms. They were supple, warm. Real. She was real. He wasn’t alone anymore.


End file.
